Finland is well known as a powerhouse in machine learning research, thanks to the pioneering work of researchers like Teuvo Kohonen and Erkki Oja. Now, Finnish universities have an exceptional opportunity to take machine learning research and education to the next level. The Finnish government has funded the newly established ELLIS Institute Finland with €40 million, and Peter Sarlin’s foundation has contributed an additional €10 million to recruit world-class tenure-track professors.
It’s been encouraging to see the strong interest in the first round of recruitment, and it’s great that several high-caliber researchers are among the applicants. At the same time, we’ve had to challenge the agility of our university’s recruitment processes to keep pace with a fast-moving timeline, and we feel we’ve done quite well in that regard. Hiring world-class researchers can be quite a challenge, and it clearly depends on many things coming together, as well as a bit of luck. The first recruitment round is still ongoing, but we are positive about the outcome. The next round will take place at the end of the year, and by then we’ll be one round wiser in our continued search for top talent to bring to Tampere.
Written by Juho Kanniainen
